The following is a conversation I had with a seventeen year old future actuary yesterday

The Great Unwashed “What program are you in?”

(We had already established that I was an old lady in a first year French course and I was majoring in being tired and grouchy.)

Seventeen Year Old– “Actuarial Sciences”

The Great Unwashed– Wait, are you going to become an actuary?

Seventeen Year Old a little shocked that anyone would be excited by math and actuarial science – “Yes”

The Great Unwashed– “Statistically what is the most dangerous activity in the world? Is it riding an elephant up Mount Everest?” Crossing my fingers and grinning because I’m excited about being right “I bet it’s riding an elephant up Mount Everest.”

Seventeen Year Old – “That’s not really what I do.”

The Great Unwashed in a disappointed tone – “Oh.”  Perks up “That’s what I would do if I was an actuary. It’s probably best that I’m not an actuary, we’d have people water skiing on the backs of those terrifying arctic seals for kicks, to see if my math was correct.”

You should see me slalom ski on one of these.(Photo Credit : thesealsofnam.org)

Seventeen Year Old who is confused about why I’m talking about water sports with killer mammals- “Actuaries make their calculations based on someone’s  gender, where they live, what they do and then say how likely it is that they’d die in one year or five years or”

The Great Unwashed jumps in “So like if I was a thirty eight year old man living in a cave on the side of a cliff, who rode a unicycle to work, you could tell me when I was going to take a dirt nap?”

Seventeen Year Old who is now backing towards the exit- “No, it doesn’t work like that.”

The Great Unwashed visibly disappointed “Oh, that’s too bad. Here I was going to pack up and move to a cave to make hemp bracelets to sell with him.”

I was about to ask the young gentleman more math questions but he ran out suddenly, I imagine it was due to excitement from last night being the final class of the course.